Helping Hand
Helping Hand is the twenty-second episode of Red vs. Blue: The Freelancer Files. It aired January 16th, 2012. Plot It had been three weeks ever since the transfer occured and Swanson adjusted to the life of working in the shipyards. He'd been assigned to maintenence duty on the scorpions so he was able to spend most of his days inside. Ever since his time underground he prefered being indoors. Plus it gave him time away from the inbred idiots of Reach's countryside. He may have adjusted but he still hated it. He missed his best friend Holmes. He prayed the something would change things up. That something, he didn't care what, would let him see Holmes again. "Fuck!" Holmes yelled as his shields were taken out by an overcharged Plasma Pistol shot. "You hurt Holmes?" said another Spartan, Evan Wherly, ducking under cover with him. "No." Holmes said ducking to hide his body until his shields recharged. "The bastards just took out my shields." "Careful. That could have fried your circuts. No more shields then." Evan replied. Meanwhile two other Spartan's Francis and Nathan were firing at an Elite trying to double team him to kill him quicker. The Covenant just kept coming. The Spartan's defending the facility were running low on ammunition and health packs. They were growing tired and their accuracy began to decrease as they grew even more tired. "Well this is just a regular holdout position. Reminds me of the Alamo." said Francis. "Yep. Lets just hope it doesn't end the same way." Nathan responded. Holmes activated his Comm. "Command. We NEED a ammo and weapons drop. What would be its ETA?" "Well Spartan the rest of the planet needs supplies as well. I'd say a two day ETA. If something comes up sooner then I'll contact you." Holmes sighed turning off the Comm. "Well guys. Brace yourselves. Command has fucked us over. No supplies for two days." The other Spartans sighed as well. "Just remember to make every shot count." Holmes added. He began noticed his shields had recharged but only partially. "My shields won't recharge fully." Holmes said. "Then they probably just fried some of the circuts. My guess next time they go down, they aren't coming back up." Evan said. "Damn." Holmes replied. "Here help me take care of this Elite." he asked. "Sure thing." Evan said as he got up and began to fire with Holmes at the menacing alien. With the two working together it fell much more quickly. "Thanks." Holmes said. He noticed his ammo count on his visor. "Hey man I'm out you got a spare mag?" "Yea. I think." Evan said loading another mag into his Assault Rifle. He then began to look around on the ground for the extra mag. "Here it is!" he said when he found it. Tossing it to Holmes he said "This is the last mag. Make it count." Holmes caught it and put it into his Assault Rifle. He looked over at Nathan and Franny to check on them. They had been over run by two elites. One Elite was dead lying on top of Franny, who was either knocked down or dead. Nathan was grabbing the living Elite's arm trying to prevent being stabbed in the visor. Franny got up at quickly jumped on the Elite's back, pulled out his combat knife, and stabbed the alien in the neck cutting what appeared to be its version of the jugular. Purple blood flew all over the place as the Elite bled out. Holmes turned back to his situation and noticed that while he was watching them the front line of Covenant had come closer and Evan had run out of ammo on his Assault Rifle and now resorted to using his Magnum. He now shot at Grunts, who would go down much easier and were the bulk of the force. This allowed the Elites to push forward. "Here we go." Holmes said. "What?" Evan asked. "I've got something for the Elites." Holmes said as he pulled a grenade from his belt. He tossed it over between 2 of the oncoming Elites. The two noticed to late and looked down only to have shrapnel shower their disgusting faces killing them. The rest of the Elites realizing they were finally in danger began to disperse. "This won't be fun." Holmes said. He began to fire at the Elite closest to him with his Assault Rifle. Without their confident leaders the Grunts began to run around aimlessly. With them no longer a target Evan began to use his Magnum to help whatever way he could. Holmes quickly finished the Elite he was killing and turned his attention to the one that Evan was attempting to kill. They killed him and Holmes tossed his Assault Rifle to the ground. "Well I'm out." he said. He looked at Nathan and Franny. They had killed all of their enemies for now. "Hey guys regroup." he said and they quickly got up and sprinted to the position. There were 4 of them and 4 Elites remaining. Evan quickly took out his Combat Knife and threw it. It stopped in the air just a few feet away from their cover. Then an Elite fell out of Active Camo and fell to the ground dead. Unsure of where the remaining Elites were the four group closer together. "How'd you see him?" Holmes asked Evan. "There was a slight shimmer when he walked near that burning tank." Evan replied. "Nice find." he said. Soon however Phantom's appeared on the opposite side dropping more troops. "Well guys. Guess we should go." Nathan said before he and Franny ran to their previous cover in order to fight the new enemy. When they were away an Elite struck Holmes's rear knocking him down. It pulled Holmes up by the neck and pulled out an Energy Sword. It began to say something but Holmes couldn't make out what it was saying. Then he heard Evan scream "DDIIIIIIIIEEEEE!" before he hit the alien in the back of the head. It dropped the Energy Sword and Holmes. Holmes tried to regain his breath and looked up. Evan was in a rage beating the Elite's skull in with his Assault Rifle. When the Elite's skull finally cracked, puncturing its brain, it let out a final scream of pain before dying. Evan tossed the Assault Rifle aside and Holmes saw it was beyond repair with a cracked Ammo readout, the trigger was missing, and the barrel of the gun was bent. He got up and took the Energy Sword. Hearing more of the odd language he lunged in its direction stabbing what appeared to be a Zealot class Elite. He soon realized that the Zealot was calling in for reinforcements as even more Phantoms showed up. However now they didn't send just infantry they also sent Wraiths and there were two Banshees. "Well great." Holmes said seeing what they were now into. "Well," Evan began, "Looks like we're about to die." "Yep. Looks like this is how it'll all end." Holmes said. The Wraith's began to fire along with the new infantry. The Grunts who were there previously going berserk calmed down and began to fight again. The ground around them became nothing but glass as plasma burned it. Holmes was able to deal with any Elites that attacked them with the energy sword and he gave Evan his handgun so he could deal with the Grunts. However the Wraith's were getting more accurate and began to fire their plasma mortors to close for comfort. All of a sudden fire rained down from the sky over the Wraith's. Explosions went off all aroud them and Holmes realized that it wasn't fire but some explosives that were falling. However soon fire actually did rain from the sky when a Pelican came with a Pyro soldier in its bay firing his Flamethrower onto the Covenant. Holmes looked behind him and saw that another Pelican was doing the same for Nathan and Franny. Holmes contacted Command "Well looks like two days comes pretty quick." "Nope soldier. Thats no ammo. The Spartan's on the other side of the facility failed and they have broken in. The facility and all its staff are gone now so you've been reassigned." "Where to sir?" asked Holmes. "A place of MUCH greater importance. The Shipyards. We need you to defend it so that we can keep getting new vehicles to replace those destroyed." "Copy that sir." Holmes said. Both joy and fear filled him. He was going to see Swanson again. But if the Shipyards were under attack he wasn't sure if Swanson would be living or dead.